Amanda Arteaga takes part in warm-up vocal exercises with the Community of Voices choir at Mission Neighborhood Center.

Photo: Raphael Kluzniok, The Chronicle

Amanda Arteaga takes part in warm-up vocal exercises with the...

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Maria Mendez, Marta Villa Franca and Carlos Gonzalez enjoy camaraderie between songs during the Community of Voices choir practice in S.F.

Photo: Raphael Kluzniok, The Chronicle

Maria Mendez, Marta Villa Franca and Carlos Gonzalez enjoy...

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Marta Rodriguez-Salazar directs the Community of Voices choir at Mission Neighborhood Center.

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

Marta Rodriguez-Salazar directs the Community of Voices choir at...

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Choir director, Martha Rodriguez-Salazar, (arms) goes through warm up exercises with members of the Community of Voices choir gathered at the Mission Neighborhood Center for practice in San Francisco, Calif. on Friday Sept. 6, 2013. A UCSF neurologist has just begun a study on aging that looks into the psychosocial and health benefits of choir singing on senior citizens.

It seems true that singing in a choir can be therapeutic, especially for older adults, but a groundbreaking clinical trial is under way in San Francisco to see whether science agrees.

Over the next five years, researchers at UCSF will create a dozen senior choirs throughout the city to compare the physical strength, balance, memory and moods of singers versus non-singers.

Backed by a $1.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, the new Community of Voices/Comunidad de Voces choirs will be offered to 400 adults older than 60, who agree to wear Bluetooth-enabled belts that measure their balance, participate in memory tests and coordination tests and answer questionnaires about their mental well-being.

Singers will meet for 90-minute rehearsals each week for a year, be paid $105 for completing three study interviews, and will be invited to perform concerts for the public. Singers will be measured against other seniors who have been asked to wait six months before starting their choir.

"In our culture, we really focus on physical activity as a way to promote health, but a lifelong hobby in the creative arts can also promote overall health, and singing is the most popular group activity in the U.S.," said lead researcher Dr. Julene Johnson, a cognitive neuroscientist and professor at the UCSF School of Nursing's Institute for Health & Aging.

Her current study builds on research that she conducted in Finland while on a 2010 Fulbright grant that found seniors in choirs scored higher than their non-singing peers on quality-of-life surveys.

Seek isolated seniors

"A social support system is so important for older adults," Johnson said. "That's why for our study we are recruiting seniors who are more isolated, maybe living in SROs and in small apartments."

Scientific study on the benefits of singing is still in its infancy, but a meta-analysis of the available research found that singing can activate certain regions in the brain and strengthen neural connections. Other studies indicate choir membership can also reduce snoring, ease emphysema, soothe irritable bowel syndrome, and a 2008 study in Japan found it helped steady the gait of people with Parkinson's disease.

The most cited study of senior choirs, authored in 2006 by the late gerontology expert Gene D. Cohen of George Washington University in D.C., found that singers reported higher overall ratings of physical health, fewer doctor visits and falls; plus less medication use and loneliness than a comparison group.

"This choir is good for me - my self-esteem is going up because I'm not in my house thinking my life has no value," said Carlos Castro, 62, a massage therapist who recently had to give up his career due to a chronic injury. He joined the UCSF study's first Community of Voices choir, which started in summer in the Mission neighborhood.

On a recent Wednesday, Castro and a dozen others sat on folding chairs in the Mission Neighborhood Center auditorium to run through a few renditions of "Quizás, Quizás, Quizás."

"Siempre que te pregunto,

Que, cuándo, cómo y dónde,

Tu siempre me respondes,

Quizás, quizás, quizás."

Marta Rodriguez-Salazar, who directs the Spanish-speaking choir, said she can already see an effect on choir members in three months.

Health improves

"At our first recital, I could see Francisco was out of breath, so I asked him to sit down," she said. "He did, but then got up again, and by the end of the concert he was standing up singing, and beaming. I saw his health improve in 30 minutes."

Right now Rodriguez-Salazar's choir is being compared against a group of seniors that has been recruited for the study's second choir that will start up in November at Centro Latino de San Francisco. Choirs three and four will be run out of the Western Addition Senior Center and the Bayview Opera House, and will be led by Maestro Curtis, a Grammy-nominated jazz producer.

Researchers recruit two choirs at once, then flip a coin and one group starts practicing and the other waits six months, so their outcomes can be compared. The last year of the five-year study will be dedicated to analyzing the results.

The ultimate goal of all this is to perhaps be able to show the larger health community that the creative arts are just as important a long-term health strategy as the treadmill.

"In my field there's been a lot of focus on curing Alzheimer's disease and dementias, but just as important are the many older adults in our community who are trying to age in a healthy way," Johnson said. "We need more evidence-based programs to show positive results to address the rapid increase of older adults who need those resources."

Or, just ask Maximina Lozano Cortez, 77. Before joining Community of Voices, she wasn't doing very much outside the house. Once she got to rehearsal, however, she noticed flyers on the wall for other activities.

"Now I go to yoga on Mondays, water aerobics on Tuesdays, choir Wednesdays, zumba on Thursdays and on Sundays ... salsa!"